Inference To The Best Decision By Patricia Churchland Summary

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Introduction

Patricia Churchland’s paper titled Inference to the Best Decision argues that humans can make good decisions without having to use normative premises to derive an ought from an is. The purpose of this paper is to reconstruct and evaluate the argument presented by Churchland in the provided passage which argues that the problem of deriving an-ought-from-an-is is not a problem as a solution to it, known as abduction exists that shows humans can make good decisions using case-based reasoning.

P1 – Sensible humans are able to make wise decisions about what they should do without following rules.
P2 – This is achieved through judging situations based on previous situations through case based reasoning.
P3- In doing so, it is proven that invoking normative premises, maxims, rules and using generalizations are not necessary while making good decisions.
C – Therefore, sensible humans have the capability to judge …show more content…

When Churchland argues that our morality is a response to our human needs and desires, it can easily be argued that human’s living in different cultures have different desires. Churchland’s paper includes an example regarding a mother reacting to her child’s assumed bee sting. She argues that the mother did not need to invoke normative premises regarding a red bump because from prior knowledge and experience, she could come to the conclusion that it is a bee sting. However, though someone may be sensible, they may understand that many insect bites create a similar reaction, and therefore we cannot assume the conclusion that this is a bee sting by using case-based reasoning. In other words, the ought/is problem is

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